UNFRIENDING FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK

Wednesday

Feb 27, 2013 at 9:04 AM

Carlo Baldino

Facebook is an internet phenomenon that has changed the landscape of American society. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has a net worth of $14 billion and was the subject of a Hollywood movie. Investors couldn’t wait for it to be publicly traded on the stock market.

One out of three divorces is linked to Facebook. It’s easy to figure out why. One can connect with old “friends” and make new “friends.” Internet romances blossom, old flames rekindle, and men and women bored with their marriages form new relationships. It’s a free dating service and a boon to adulterous affairs. It’s surprising that the Catholic Church and other religious groups haven’t condemned and prohibited its use. The government should allow religious employers to ban Facebook from company computers instead of allowing them to deny birth control to their female employees.

Not only does Facebook cause divorce, it also promotes depression. People see their “friends” posting pictures of vacations, happy family gatherings, new cars and clothes, sexy relationships, and the “have nots” go into a deep funk because they compare themselves to the “have everythings.” It doesn’t dawn on them that the pictures are staged and the lives behind them aren’t necessarily that rosy.

With Facebook you can become a citizen of your own internet community, and you can have friends who think like you with regard to social and political issues. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, but mistakes are made.

Topics and issues come up and comments are written that make you realize the people who are your “friends” don’t think like you at all. They’re conservative, and you thought they were liberal, or they’re liberal, and you thought they were conservative.

The election of 2012 caused a rash of “unfriending” action on Facebook. To unfriend someone you have to click on their picture. Then you click on the “friends” option. A menu comes up with the choice to “unfriend” at the bottom. You click on that and a message asks “Are you sure you want to remove (person’s name) as your friend?” You then click yes, and you get one more chance to change your mind. Another message informs you the person has been removed, but you have to click “OK” for the process to be completed.

Between the vicious fighting over Barack Obama and Willard Romney and the even worse battle over Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown, the Facebook world was rocked and socked with venomous attacks and counter attacks. Opinions were belittled and insults were hurled. Rather than back down, commenters doubled down. Rational discourse was replaced with scathing charges of insanity directed toward those who had antithetical political viewpoints.

The result was massive unfriending. One liberal couple told me they just couldn’t read another word about charges that Elizabeth Warren lied about being a Cherokee or Barack Obama’s Muslim-socialist-apologist-communist-Kenyan background. They unfriended half a dozen people.

The election affected more relationships than those on Facebook. There was a Columbus Day parade in a wealthy town east of Worcester. In an upper-middle class development where the neighbors frequently socialized, a “Desperate Housewives” sort of neighborhood, every couple but one was staunchly conservative. The liberal couple, Bob and Sandy, had attended a cookout the day before the parade. Bob reported he spent the day biting his tongue and clenching his teeth at the stupid statements made by the Republicans in the group. Finally something was said that sent him over the edge and he lashed out with a caustic rebuttal. The others looked at him with disapproval.

The next day at the parade a hundred Elizabeth Warren supporters showed up with signs and placards, countered by a dozen Scott Brown supporters. Bob and Sandy’s neighbors began shouting insults at the Warren group, which provoked Bob and Sandy to defend the Democratic candidate’s people. An argument flared up between Bob and Sandy and their neighbors. Even Bob and Sandy’s five-year-old daughter got into the act. “Well,” she said, “there are a lot more Warren people than Brown people here.”

The next day Sandy received a text message from her next-door neighbor, a woman with whom she’d spent considerable time, telling her she didn’t think it would be possible for them to be friends any longer. She was unfriending Sandy, and they weren’t even on Facebook.

Sandy couldn’t believe it. How could a political argument get this serious? Wasn’t this a ridiculous resolution to the problem?

After careful consideration and short reflection I say no, this is the way it should be. Life is too short to have to force yourself to deal with people who are the polar opposite in their thinking about social, political, and religious issues. It’s one thing to make exceptions for family members. You can maintain silence for the sake of getting along with your relations, and you can avoid topics that are sure to create hostility (On the other hand, I heard a story yesterday about a navy veteran in rural Virginia who owns fifteen assault rifles and has severed ties with his mother and sister because they voted for Barack Obama). You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your relatives. And for the sake of putting bread on your table, you would be advised, whether you’re liberal or conservative, to suck it up around employers.

I know a right-wing Republican who lives in Central Massachusetts but can’t wait to leave this state and move to Tennessee. Even though the people around him think the way he does (Scott Brown won by 9 points in Central Mass, and Romney won nearly every town in the area), he wants to leave because the rest of the state is too liberal.

He should go. He’d be much happier in a red state than a blue one.

Why would a liberal want to associate with “friends” who are against abortion, birth control, gay marriage, affirmative action, a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, unions, etc., and who vote against their own self-interest, favor tax breaks for the wealthy, believe that all minorities are on welfare, deny that racism exists, believe in virgin births but not global warming, and don’t have a problem with millions of Americans lacking health insurance. What kind of friends are those?

And it works both ways. Why would conservatives want to associate with friends who have principles totally contrary to theirs, and who have disdain and contempt for the ideologies they embrace?

This country is more divided than it has ever been, and there is no end in sight. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Before the November election I predicted that if Obama won the Republicans wouldn’t accept defeat but would double down and become more determined than ever to obstruct anything and everything he tried to do to govern this country. And I know this last sentence will be met with howls of denial, further proving how divided we are and how perception and reality occupy different planets. The best bet is for both sides to hunker down until one side takes complete control, because until that happens we are ungovernable.